Participating in a Pitch Competition? You'll Probably Be Asked These Questions.

This past winter, 10 startup founders pitched their startups in front of a 250-plus crowd and a panel of judges at AlleyNYC's first Pitch Night NYC, held at the co-working space's midtown Manhattan office.

While the startups varied in their stage of development and function, all were graded on the same five criteria: The problem it was attempting to solve along with the ingenuity of the proposed solution, presentation style, market opportunity, traction and strength of the founding team.

To determine a winner, the panel of five judges grilled each presenter on business fundamentals after his or her pitch. The judges were Jay Levy, co-founder of Zelkova Ventures; Matt Witheiler, general partner at Flybridge Capital Partners; Elliot Durbin, general partner at BoldStart Ventures; Alex Iskold, managing director at Techstars; and Ray Hennessey, editorial director of Entrepreneur.com.

Watch the above video to learn exactly what the judges wanted to know.

Editor's Note: Entrepreneur Media is an investor and partner with AlleyNYC, a co-working space in New York City. Pitch NYC is sponsored through a joint partnership between AlleyNYC, Techstars and Entrepreneur Media.